A NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE WOS AND THE WAVE PROPAGATION ALONG A COASTAL DIKE

Panayotis Prinos, Maria Tsakiri, Dimitris Souliotis

Abstract

Wave overtopping and the propagation of the waves on the crest and the landward slope of a coastal dike is investigated numerically. Wave overtopping conditions are simulated using the concept of the Wave Overtopping Simulator (WOS). Two numerical models of the WOS are constructed using the FLUENT 6.0.12 (FLUENT Inc. 2001) and the FLOW 3D 9.4 (FLOW 3D 2010) CFD codes. The former simulates the WOS without accounting for air entrainment while the latter accounts for air entrainment. The unsteady RANS equations, the RNG k-ε turbulence model and the VOF method are solved numerically, for "tracking" the free surface and the head of the "current" from the dike crest to the landward dike slope. The computed results from the two models are compared with each other and also against field measurements and proposed empirical relationships (Van der Meer et al. 2010).